


aftermath

by smalldeer



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Children's Crusade Spoilers, Depression, Grief/Mourning, Nonbinary Character, Panic Attacks, Trans Character, depersonalization implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalldeer/pseuds/smalldeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It doesn't sink in at first.</i><br/>(billy kaplan/wiccan character study)</p>
            </blockquote>





	aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings are in additional tags. this deals with major canon character death, so please don't read if you don't want to be spoiled for cc issue 9!!  
> (this was written as a billy app for an rp but accidentally, um. was longer than it needed to be and. yeah. so it's very much... billy's take on what i think happened between all the shit that went down and the call to start back up.)

It doesn't sink in at first. When Doom first took down Cassie--- _killed her_ , he has to remind himself often at first, when she was _killed_ \---and Nathanielkang murdered the Vision, there was just. There was so much going on.

The others used to tease him, sometimes, that he was kind of a crybaby; he cried every time he watched the Captain tell Maria that _you can't marry someone when you're in love with someone else,_ all 30+ times, even thought he always knew and always would know he loved her. He cried the first time he and Teddy said _I love you_. He cried after he---after he fucked up, after he went after Vanda and endangered them all, got people _killed._

He's cried, and still cries, for no reason other than because he has to, and crying is good, and sometimes he can't help it because there's just so _much_ and it's. It's hard to deal with (being bullied; then being the only gay _let alone_ trans kid you know; then being something there weren't even words for (demiboy, he knew now); then being a goddamn _Young Avenger_ and fighting bad guys and finding out he had a whole new family and having to save them and fucking up saving them and---)

Yeah. It's hard to deal with.

But when Cassie and the Vision die, he doesn't cry. Kate cries, Ant Man cries, Vanda cries---fuck, even _Wolverine_ looks choked up, and the man's a heartless brute---but Billy just.

His eye twitches, maybe once, but he's. He's fine. He holds Nathanielkang back and does all he's supposed to do, he tries to set everything right even though he knows he can't and he knows no one will fucking listen to him and even though part of him isn't as heated about it as maybe he was just before.

Things seem less urgent after they die, and that's all there is to say about it. They disband because they... they just _can't,_ anymore, without them, and truth be told he doesn't think they were ever cut out for it. And Tommy's... Tommy's pissed at him in his Tommy way, and Teddy holds him tighter than usual when they go to bed, but he can barely even feel it.

He doesn't cry for two weeks because he doesn't feel anything. He doesn't feel a fucking thing.

After that, it's all he can do to _stop_ crying, and Teddy will bring him breakfast in bed, and they'll watch Project Runway and I Love Lucy rererererereruns, and they'll kiss and his laundry piles up and miraculously gets done and piles up again until he stops getting dressed at all.

He only feels _there_ half the time, and the other half he's _too_ there, like his brain is going faster than even Tommy can manage, and everything is brightbrightbright and Cassie is dying and she's dead and he's the one whose arms she's in and what if Tommy dies, what if he comes back, what if Kane comes back and takes Vanda and what if he takes Teddy and he goes nuclear but this time people _die_ and---

One day Teddy says the word is hypervigilant, and then later says something about panic attacks, but the words sound fuzzy and he's already reaching to pull the covers back up.

They're probably all taking it pretty hard, he thinks. He wouldn't really know.


End file.
